HISTORY OF WHEAT.
Isis was supposed to have introduced wheat into Egypt, Demeter into Greece, and the Emperor Chin-Wong into China, about 3000 B.C. In Europe it was cultivated before the period of history, as samples have been recovered from the lacustrine dwellings of Switzerland.
The first wheat raised in the "New World" was sown by the Spaniards on the island of Isabella, in January, 1494, and on March the 30th the ears were gathered. The foundation of the wheat harvest of Mexico is said to have been three or four grains carefully cultivated in 1530, and preserved by a slave of Cortez. The first crop of Quito was raised by a Franciscan monk in front of the convent. Garcilasso de la Vega affirms that in Peru, up to 1658, wheaten bread had not been sold in Cusco. Wheat was first sown by Goshnold Cuttyhunk, on one of the Elizabeth Islands in Buzzard's Bay, off Massachusetts, in 1602, when he first explored the coast. In 1604, on the island of St. Croix, near Calais, Me., the Sieur de Monts had some wheat sown which flourished finely. In 1611 the first wheat appears to have been sown in Virginia. In 1626, samples of wheat grown in the Dutch Colony at New Netherlands were shown in Holland. It is probable that wheat was sown in the Plymouth Colony prior to 1629, though we find no record of it, and in 1629 wheat was ordered from England to be used as seed. In 1718 wheat was introduced into the valley of the Mississippi by the "Western Company." In 1799 it was among the cultivated crops of the Pimos Indians of the Gila River, New Mexico.